Principal Platform Engineer

Who we are:

Raft (https://TeamRaft.com) is a customer-obsessed non-traditional small business with a purposeful focus on Distributed Data Systems, Platforms at Scale, and Complex Application Development, with headquarters in McLean, VA. Our range of clients includes innovative federal and public agencies leveraging design thinking, cutting-edge tech stack, and cloud-native ecosystem. We build digital solutions that impact the lives of millions of Americans.

We’re looking for an experienced Principal Platform Engineer to support our customers and join our passionate team of high-impact problem solvers.

About the role:

The Principal Platform Engineer shall have senior software engineering experience building and operating hybrid-infrastructure developer platforms (private and commercial cloud infrastructure) at an Individual Contributor Level. A successful candidate has prior experience deploying Kubernetes in multiple ways and supporting automation of platform management at the enterprise scale. The engineer shall have experience developing platform APIs that make common software operations scalable and repeatable. The engineer will feel comfortable maintaining the underlying services required to host containerized applications. The engineer will be at least a mid to senior-level engineer capable of mentoring junior developers and engineers. The engineer will also possess effective communication skills to interact with various stakeholders, internal and external to the organization.

What we are looking for: 

• Provide guidance for the design and architecture of provisioning/maintaining Kubernetes clusters at a massive scale
• Implement rapid proof of concept and pilots of new capabilities to demonstrate the feasibility of new solutions to application developers and the rest of the platform integration team
• Work closely with the client and other key stakeholders to provide strategic input and help navigate needs and tradeoffs to build extensible digital solutions
• Ideally, 5+ years' in-depth experience maintaining production-grade Kubernetes clusters with multiple teams using the clusters for development
• 5+ years' experience building production services with cloud infrastructure such as AWS (preferred, or at least last 1-2 years), Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud
• 3+ years' experience with modern programming languages such as Java, Python, or Go
• Managed infrastructure and developed APIs/platform services for tenants to use container services
• Linux experience
• Comfortable provisioning and debugging complex CI/CD pipelines
• Extensive experience in containerizing applications using Docker and orchestrating them on managed platforms
• Experienced in building data-intensive platforms and using open-source technologies
• Enjoy collaborating with the team to plan story points, sprint themes, etc
• Experience with at least one agile methodology, including Scrum or Kanban  
• Loves to demo work to team and stakeholders
• Obtain Security+ within the first 90 days of employment with Raft

Highly preferred:

• Previous experience with relational and non-relational databases such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, and Elasticsearch
• Nice to have: Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) or Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD), or Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS)
• Nice to have: Infrastructure as Code experience, specifically using Terraform
• Nice to have: vSphere experience

Clearance Requirements:

• Ability to obtain and maintain a security clearance

Work Type: 

• Remote
• May require up to 10% travel

Salary Range:

• $140,000 - $225,000
• The determination of compensation is predicated upon a candidate's comprehensive experience, demonstrated skill, and proven abilities

What we will offer you:

• Highly competitive salary
• Fully covered healthcare, dental, and vision coverage
• 401(k) and company match
• Take as you need PTO + 11 paid holidays
• Education & training benefits
• Annual budget for your tech/gadgets needs
• Monthly box of yummy snacks to eat while doing meaningful work
• Remote, hybrid, and flexible work options
• Team off-site in fun places!
• Generous Referral Bonuses
• And More!

Our Vision Statement: 

We bridge the gap between humans and data through radical transparency and our obsession with the mission. 

Our Customer Obsession: 

We will approach every deliverable like it's a product. We will adopt a customer-obsessed mentality. As we grow, and our footprint becomes larger, teams and employees will treat each other not only as teammates but customers. We must live the customer-obsessed mindset, always. This will help us scale and it will translate to the interactions that our Rafters have with their clients and other product teams that they integrate with. Our culture will enable our success and set us apart from other companies.

How do we get there? 

Public-sector modernization is critical for us to live in a better world. We, at Raft, want to innovate and solve complex problems. And, if we are successful, our generation and the ones that follow us will live in a delightful, efficient, and accessible world where out-of-box thinking, and collaboration is a norm. 

Raft’s core philosophy is Ubuntu: I Am, Because We are. We support our “nadi” by elevating the other Rafters. We work as a hyper collaborative team where each team member brings a unique perspective, adding value that did not exist before. People make Raft special. We celebrate each other and our cognitive and cultural diversity. We are devoted to our practice of innovation and collaboration. 

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